Claire rejoined with a question of her own. “What is this really about, Caleb?”
What exactly was she asking? “I’m not following, sweetheart,” he said slowly, sensing a trap here.
“You’ll say your art,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or you’ll point out that you have to travel. London one day. Paris another. But never America, though.”
At the corner of his eye, a muscle twitched. She didn’t know what she was talking about. Caleb forced back the tide of denials he wished to level, refusing to feed her questioning and accusations so that she would stop.
Only, she proved tenacious in even this. When she spoke this time, however, there was a gentler quality to her tones. “But do you know what I think?”
“I trust you intend to—”
“Tell you?” she cut him off. “Yes. I’ll tell you the truth.” Claire angled her chin up. “I don’t think you’re searching for your muse, Caleb. Or actually heading anywhere…” She paused and gave him a long look that was full of such pity and sadness, he squirmed with discomfort. “I think you are running away,” she finished. “In fact…” She took a step toward him, and he reflexively moved back a step. Running from her and the suppositions she spoke as truths? “I don’t even really believe you’ve lost your muse.”
He jerked, curling his hands tightly at his sides. “You don’t know a thing about it, Claire.” He gritted those words out as a warning.
Alas, she proved braver than any grown man, from the navy to street-hardened criminals who’d been impressed alongside Caleb.
She took another step closer. “If your muse is lost, you cannot bring yourself to stay in whatever place you happen to be residing.”
The charge sent his pulse pounding harder and louder in his ears, leaving a sickly sweat to coat his skin. Claire, however, wasn’t done with him.
“You are constantly leaving. Never staying in one place too long.”
His gut clenched.
“Always running from your past. From what you endured on that ship.”
Stop.
“From the pain of your broken engagement and your brother’s betrayal.”
Every word was a lash upon his soul, sharper than any he’d taken aboard the British man-o’-war ship.
“From the parents you never even speak about. All the while, you’re looking for something that isn’t truly missing, so you don’t have to bring yourself to—”
His patience broke. “Enough,” he bellowed, his heart threatening to pound outside his chest.
Claire jumped several inches, and all the color drained from her cheeks.
“I said enough,” he echoed a second time, even as that order was unnecessary. She’d already at last given him her silence. “You think, what?” he demanded. “We spend several days together, and you suddenly know me? Well, you don’t, Claire. You know nothing.”
But her silence didn’t bring him relief. It brought a sick sense of guilt at having yelled at her.
They remained there, fixed to their spots. Claire’s shoulders rose and fell at a quick cadence. And then she gave a shaky nod.
“Forgive me,” she said stiffly. “Our marrying, it was a foolish thought from the start. As you pointed out, you don’t even like me.” With that, she started around him and headed down the corridor.
The one-sidedness of her last declaration did not escape Caleb.
A muscle twitched at the corner of his eye.
She believed his declination and reaction just now somehow stemmed from feelings of resentment on his part. Yes, maybe that would have held true months ago. But so much had changed between them. Everything had changed. Now, his rejection came because of how damned much she’d come to mean to him.
Caleb stared after her rapidly retreating frame.
Let her go. It is easier this way, for the both of us. Let her think you don’t like her.
But damn it all, he couldn’t just have her leave this place thinking that.
“I didn’t say I dislike you, Claire,” he bit out.
She stopped, but did not turn to face him, and he strode over to her, sliding into her path.
“I like you,” he said tiredly. “Perhaps too much,” he murmured, palming her nape.
Claire’s rosebud lips slipped apart.
With that, he was lost.
Caleb covered her mouth with his, swallowing the little sigh she emitted as she let him inside, and he delved deep into that hot cavern.
Claire swirled her tongue around his, like some manner of wand she wove, and maybe it was because this, having her in his arms pressed against him, was pure magic.
Growling, he lowered his hands and cupped her buttocks, bringing her up higher, flush against him, and as magnificently wanton as she was whenever she was in his arms, she rocked herself against him, undulating her hips, further fueling this voracious hungering that refused to quit where Claire was concerned.
Drawing her higher into his arms, he guided her up, and she instantly wrapped her legs around him, her wet skirts riding high about her waist as he bared her limbs.
Caleb guided her up onto the nearby hall table, and she let her legs splay so he could step between them. She was bare of undergarments, and he slipped his palm between her legs and found her, cupping the silken thatch of curls.
Her eyes clenched tight, Claire moved against his hand. “Mmm,” she moaned.
“What do you want?” he whispered against her mouth. “Tell me,” he demanded and brushed his thumb over her nub once, eliciting a sharp hiss.
He stopped, and her eyes immediately opened. “Tell me,” he repeated, withholding that which she sought.
“More,” she begged, and he obliged, sliding a finger inside her.
Claire’s body instantly sagged, and she collapsed against the wall, lifting into his touch. Moving her hips wildly in time to his strokes, she set the table under her knocking against the wall.
Sweat beaded on his broad brow, and he viciously hungered to take even more. More than he had a right to. But right didn’t stop that hungering, the need to bring her to surcease just once more.
Once was all he’d need, and then they could part ways and—
And he was a fucking liar. He was going to paint these moments in his mind long after they’d parted, all bright and burning color on a canvas to capture her as she was when she found her pleasure.
He increased the steady rhythm of his strokes. Claire’s respirations grew sharp and harsh, her movements jerky, and then she stiffened.
“Yesssss,” she cried out, loud enough in her surrender that any nearby servant could hear. She continued pumping her hips, and then she stopped.
And the truth was, as Caleb pressed a kiss against her temple and struggled to get control of his breathing and heartbeat after her coming undone in his arms once more, he confronted maybe the greatest reason he’d really said no: He wanted her with the fierce kind of intensity that could only see a man destroyed.
Chapter 20
As Claire made her way to dinner that night, she passed the long row of windows and stared at the snowflakes that had begun falling past the frosted lead panes. Every other panel bore a crack.
She paused and ran a fingertip along a winding, lightning-shaped zigzag, following it all the way to the bottom of the panel.